An Open letter to President Bush (End run vs. Outsourcing)

Me | Me

[discostu]

What I'm saying is quite clear:
Corporations have no duty outside of profit
They aren't here to protect the country, that's the governments job
They aren't here to make you feel good about yourself, that's your job
They aren't here to make sure you have a job, that's your job
They aren't here to make sure people here are happy, that's the people's job

They exist to make profit. That is the nature of the beast. Lions exist to eat other animals. Grass exists to be eaten by animals. Corporations exist to make profit. When Hewlitt and Packard decided to incorporate and start selling the things they made in their garage they did so to make money. When Harley and Davidson decided to incorporate to start selling the things they made in their garage they did so to make money. When the guy that invented the little pastic clip that holds the strings of your venician blinds together decided to mass produce those clips and sell them to blind companies he did so to make money. That's why corporations exist.

Reasonable restrictions can be placed on them, but they must be REASONABLE and well thought out. And when the restriction you want to put on a company is a silly one like "don't import labor" you aren't being reasonable. You're attempting to restrict their ability to make a profit so that people you think are more deserving of the company's labor dollar get it, who deserves Company X's labor dollar isn't your or my call to make, that is Company X's decision exclusively. They earned the money, they decide who earned a piece of the pie.

[discostu]

Monopolies are not inherrently illegal. When a company is found to be a monopoly there are certain activities (like leveraged horizontal market expansion) they are no longer allowed to participate in. But the monopoly itself is perfectly legal as long as the opperate within the new rules.

It's not traitorism. That's part of the problem with you guys. You think that just because we disagree we're traitors. We happen to think that what you want to do would be horrible for America, that indeed it's YOUR position that, if you're actual intent was to damage America, would be treasonous. But we don't call you traitors because that's silly insipid namecalling that shows a lack of intelligence and self confidence. Until you grow up enough to see that we want what's best for America and just happen to disagree about what is actualy best you will never be able to hold an intelligent debate on this, and that lack of ability to hold intelligent debate reflects on the innate intelligence (or lack of same) of your position. "Free traitors" is just a sad attempt to create flame wars when logic and reason have failed you.

[discostu]

Shows how little you know. The mob's profitability has been dropping drastically in the last few decades. Life sentences for drug trafficing have all but destroyed the code of silence, Indian casinos are killing the illegal gambling, a sub-culture of easy women has destroyed the market for prositutes, and the junk-bond kings have taken Las Vegas away from them. If it wasn't for the unions the mob would be broke.

[discostu]

My boss is quite happy with my productivity level thank you very much. I find the bugs and I beat the schedule, multi-tasking is the key to my life.

[N3WBI3]

Using a tariff to level the playing field (not talking protectionism) so that if indeed an Indian worker can do the job better they will get it is fine. Letting a nation destroy the environment (Im not a green person but there should be *some* protection), have kids work 12 hours a day, and pay people a poverty wage is not ok, and should not be rewarded with free trade..

[Havoc]

And Hitler surely won't turn around and attack Russia knowing the butt kicking Napoleon took... History can lend insight - but in this case, there is no historical context with which one can compare because it's never been done before. And for good reason.

Comparative Advantage doesn't exist currently. And thats a foundation stone for free trade - required as it were. So there is good reason to prognosticate doom when there is no history to compare to, you're fooling with a theory whose baseline requirements for implementation haven't been met and the only result gleaned has been the ruin of people and an attack on middle class incomes that is growing to an all out assault. And we aren't talking about Japan here are we. We're talking about companies expecting the US to hand it's jobs to every 50 cent a day worker on the planet - numbering in the multiples over the sum total of US citizens so they can make themselves rich, tell us how rosey things are and in the meantime laugh apparently at the destruction they've wrought because they can't control things here and seem to think it's their birthright. If Congress don't reign you unethical twits in, the American people will reign it all in.

[discostu]

History does lend insight. Here's the insight it lends:
1 - there's always somebody complaining that some other country is about to destroy/ take over/ subjugate/ overrun America
2 - they've never been right
3 - looking at the actual manufacturing and other economic data for the last year clearly indicates that the American economy is quite healthy and in no danger of being exported out of the country
4 - the paranoid doom and gloomers always ignore item 3
5 - the paranoid doom and gloomers always say "this isn't like that other time"
6 - this always winds up being like that other time

There's your free insight for the day.

[Havoc]

Where is your imperical falsifiable data showing that free trade works? Where is the historic record. I didn't ask you for rhetoric. We get plenty of rhetoric and claims from you guys - for crying out loud you sound like a cult. Lie, decieve, twist and shovel smoke...

[discostu]

The economy is up, the GDP is up, jobs are growing, manufacturing indexes are up, retail is up. The historic record is RIGHT NOW, everything is up. The cultish one here is you, insisting the sky is falling when there's not a single fact that proves it. Even XBob's latest graphs shows things going UP, good things.

[Havoc]

The economy is up, the GDP is up, jobs are growing, manufacturing indexes are up, retail is up. The historic record is RIGHT NOW, everything is up.

We keep hearing that; but, we have yet to see it. That's called a disconnect.. when your rhetoric and reality don't match up. That's when we start making judgements for ourselves about why we're being lied to. If you tell me niagra falls has stopped falling, I'd expect to be able to see that for myself. If it's still fallin while you say it isn't, I'm not going to proclaim it isn't to belie the facts. I'm going to say it is and that you're a liar and a con man.

[Havoc]

I'm still waiting, btw, for your impiracle data and historical records showing us factually that free trade works.

[discostu]

I see it. You don't see it because you chose not too. I've lived through recessions, I've lived through boom times, one walk through the mall can tell me which we're in. I walk through the mall now and I see lots of merchandise, the merchandise is clean which indicates it hasn't been on the shelf for a long time, there aren't a lot of sale signs out which would indicate the store is desperate for some cash, there aren't a lot of empty store fronts, and people are walking around with full bags indicating they're spending money. The reality IS my rhetoric, every financial indicator that matters is UP and the behavior of the American people is the behavior of people in a boom economy.

If YOU chose to read nothing but bad news that's YOUR problem. There will always be bad news, there's no economy that's completely bad news proof, no economy so booming that no business do poorly. But the bad news by itself never tells the whole story. Open your eyes and look at what is REALLY happening, you'll find that all of your paranoid fantasies are wholy unfounded. You are simply wrong, as your ilk always is, and with a little help from God always will be.

But I don't expect you to EVER be man enough to admit you're wrong, your ilk never is.

[discostu]

Still waiting for what? just look at what XBob posted in 558, what direction is the trend going? Just look at the latest job data (new jobless claims lowest in 3 years). Just look at unemployment (under 6% which used to be considered full employment). Just check the latest retail figures ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,116943,00.html ).

Everything good is going up, most everything bad is going down. All in a period when our international trade is freer than it's ever been. Free trade IS WORKING RIGHT NOW. This IS the historical data. Come, join me in reality, it's a nice place, much sweeter smelling than that dank depressing hole you currently call a world view.

[discostu]

Oh and BTW, it's EMPIRICAL http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=empirical

[Havoc]

Uhuh, here comes the merry-go-round spin again. Keep arguing in circles and hope someone buys it and forgets all that nasty bad stuff that they're just imagining.. Pathetic, Useless and utterly vacant.

[discostu]

There's no spin here Havoc, just data:
New unemployment claims - DOWN
Unemployment as a percentage - DOWN
Total jobs in the economy - UP
GDP - UP
Manufacturing indexes - UP
Retail sales - UP
Inflation - DOWN

All the data is good. You can chose to declare it all a lie if you want. But don't say that just because you've cut off your nose it's my fault your glasses keep falling off.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I'm still waiting, btw, for your impiracle data and historical records showing us factually that free trade works.

Why don't you show us where restricting trade works to make a country more prosperous than America.

Would you like to trade places with North Korea, Cuba, Europe. Which country following your ideas does better than America? Take your time.

[stig]

A bad economy and runaway inflation created Hitler. (I have a postage stamp for 3 billion marks), and caused him to purge millions of Jews, and caused WWII.

No illegal mafia style strong arm tactics and propaganda created Hitler. And Hitler and his ilk are soley responsible for the havoc they wrought.

The lack of oil and steel (bad economy) caused the Japenese to expand and and start WWII in Asia, killing millions.

No the Japanese of the time were soley responsible. They had imperialistic ambitions plain and simple. Had they not attacked Pearl Harbor (thereby drawing us into war) they would have taken control of a good portion of the Pacific rim.

A bad economy caused Stalin to purge millions of Kulaks.

There's a job for you in the press as a Stalin apologist if you really believe the above statement.

A bad economy caused the starvation of hundreds of thousands perhaps millions in Asia/india - before the Green revolution.

India's problems stem more from their caste system than the green revolution.

Mao Tse Tung killed millions in China because of the bad economy.

Another murderous lying thug you seem to want to make excuses for. I suppose it was a bad economy that made him occupy Tibet.

Bad economies in Africa are currently killing millions.

Tribal hatred has more to do with this as well as Muslims trying to kill off Christians.

Have you ever been to a country where the people are so poor they steal your letter before the stamp is cancelled to steal your stamp, because they are so poor? I have. Bad economies kill millions, and when we in the US have to get involved, we lose thousands and hundreds of thousands.

No one likes a bad economy, it certainly causes suffering. But your implication seems to be that government control of the economy is the answer. Somehow the government has to save a person's job but forget about the security of the country from Islamic extremists. Not that I agree with your premise but the Islamic extremists we seem to be dealing with all come from nations that are rich in Natural Resources.

[Havoc]

Why don't you buy an argument that has weight and in the mean time help your co-ethically challenged pal there dig up the data requested that from past History shows this theory works and, one better, without the baseline present which the theory sets up as a requirement. Cause the baseline requirement to make it work isn't present. The whole thing is a sham, from the baseline being absent to abuse of H1 and L1 visas to Congress being outright lied to about companies not being able to staff IT positions in the US so they have to outsource to find workers. The last one I still can't believe but it was done. And whenever some group has to consistently lie to get by with something, it isn't good or they wouldn't have to lie at every opportunity, decieve at every opportunity and mistate the facts and the record, much less use an unproven theory (for which the baseline requirements don't exist) as a scapegoat.
It's a house of cards.

[discostu]

We've got an argument that has weight the economy. For the majority of the time since NAFTA was passed the US economy has been chugging along at meterioric rates, unemployment has dropped lower than ever, the GDP is up, the DOW finally broke away from the 1000 mark it hovered at for decades.

We have a baseline: the entire history of the American economy before NAFTA. Things are better now. While Free Trade might not have made things better it sure didn't make things worse. Show me ONE vital economic statistic that's down since NAFTA went into place. Is our manufacturing sector producing less than before NAFTA? Do we have fewer people employed? Is the stock market lower? Is our GDP lower? Is manufacturing a lower percentage of our GDP? Are the manufacturing indexes lower?

The answer is no across the board. The only "bad" thing is that we have more trade imbalance, and yet inspite of all the panic this causes no one is able to point to concrete example of something bad that has ACTUALLY happened BECAUSE of this imbalance. They all make dire predictions, none of which have come true, then when confronted they call the opposition traitors and claim that all the statistics are lies.

Sorry but the statistics aren't lies. The economy is chugging along well and the protectionist are wrong. That's the TRUTH, no spin. And if you don't have an answer that isn't filled with LIES, insults and accusations then just don't reply because I've already read all your LIES, insults and accusations 100 times and they aren't interesting anymore.